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Unified Architectural Theory, Chapter 13

We will be publishing Nikos Salingaros ’ book, Unified Architectural Theory , in a series of 

installments, making it digitally, freely available for students and architects around the world.

In Chapter 13, Sa lingaro s begins to conclude his argument by discussi ng its counterpart,

explaining how post-modern theorists such as Peter Eisenman  came to eclipse the ideas of 

Christopher Alexander  – an d why Eisenman’s theoretical hegemony is not based upon 

sound archite ctural thinking. If you missed them, m ake  sure  t o re a d the  previous 

installments here.

Natural and Unnatural Form Languages

The concept of living structure, and the support for the theory offered by both direct

experience and science, offers a basis for designing and understanding architecture. This

platform is a sensible way of approaching design and building, because it is beholden

neither to ideology, nor to individual agendas. Moreover, it should be contrasted to the

irrationality of other schemes that currently appear in and seem to drive architectural

discourse.

If we seek meaning in the built environment, then we cannot continue to use interpretative

schemata that lack intellectual coherence. Something as important as architecture cannot

be founded upon arbitrary bases. Well, it could, and in my opinion actually has been for

several decades, but the result is, unsurprisingly, unsatisfactory. We would prefer an

architecture that is consistent with human feeling, and in which design decisions are based

on observation and empirical verification. The bottom line is that buildings have to provide

good, healthy environments for human beings, and to inflict the least possible damage to

the Earth’s ecology.

This book presented a body of work that provides a universal basis for judging whether

architecture is sound or not. The criteria used to justify inclusion of a structure in the class of

“good” buildings are divorced here from opinion, changing fashions, or power interests.

They appeal to the human population as a whole, which is interested in a healthy

environment. Indeed, the strength of the tools we studied lies in that they are felt to be

useful by people from different cultures and backgrounds.

The City of Culture / Eisenman Architects. "Eisenman explains how he creates forms that

make him feel high in his own mind, instead of considering the mundane needs of the user.Thus it comes as no surprise that he wants to express a stressed conception of life through

his buildings’ twisted and unbalanced forms". Image © Duccio Malagamba

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The strongest proof of the validity of the model we covered comes from its intimate relation

to the physical world. Such a link is not commonly discussed among architects, who tend to

live in an artificial universe of their own making: a world of images divorced from reality.

Some architects have found innovation by contrasting with nature, which seems to have

been a formula for design innovation ever since early modernism, and those architects have

become quite successful commercially in doing so. Nevertheless, humanity in the past has

never done well to deny or to go against nature, because eventually that practice leads to

collapse in one way or another.

Our model also provides a much-needed working link to the great artistic and architectural

achievements of the past. Such concerns are explicitly forbidden in a discipline driven only

by incessant innovation. One rule in that game is to never look back. Students are made to

study architecture as history, but are not allowed to learn practical tools from it nor apply the

lessons to their design projects; “see and admire, but don’t think of re-using anything!” It is

astonishing that people are ready and eager to jettison their cultural heritage in order to

follow the latest fashion.

Coming to the end of this book, we can now judge those structures that are allied with our

own life, and distinguish them from those that either ignore or violate biological processes.

We can choose to erect buildings by giving them any qualities we wish them to embody. But

at least now we have a basis for judgment that is accessible to analysis. Both Christopher

Alexander and I believe in building things that enhance living structure, but we cannot

influence others — they must decide for themselves what properties to incorporate into their

designs.

To showcase how different our concept of architecture is from other practitioners’, we have

the famous 1982 debate between Alexander and Peter Eisenman. This was a historically

crucial moment for architecture, because it marked the first public presentation of

Alexander’s “The Nature of Order”, at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. It was also

Media Centre at Lord's Cricket Ground / Future Systems. "Some architects have found

innovation by contrasting with nature, which seems to have been a formula for design

innovation ever since early modernism, and those architects have become quite successful

commercially in doing so". Image © Flickr CC user Ben Sutherland

"Students are made to study architecture as history, but are not allowed to learn practical

tools from it nor apply the lessons to their design projects." Conversely, it is thought that in

his design for The Rotunda at the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson was inspired by

drawings of Rome's Pantheon - which were in turn drawn by Andrea Palladio in the 16th

century. Image © Flickr CC user Brian Jeffery Beggerly

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established star of architecture, teaching at Yale University and winning major commissions

worldwide. Moneo himself went on to head the Harvard Graduate School of Design (where

this debate was taking place) during 1985 to 1990. He then won the Pritzker prize in 1993,

and was subsequently commissioned in 1996 to build the Los Angeles cathedral (a building

I have criticized in a 2012 review). The architectural power brokers decided the direction of

architecture: Alexander was left behind and pushed out of the system.

Eisenman explains how he creates forms that make him feel high in his own mind, instead

of considering the mundane needs of the user. Thus it comes as no surprise that he wants

to express a stressed conception of life through his buildings’ twisted and unbalanced forms.

This honest admission of following a design philosophy that makes buildings uncomfortable

points to vastly different values from Alexander’s scientific rationality. And saying so openly

(in the early 1980s) gave an example for young architects to follow, which is what they did.

Critics associated an attraction of the mind to architectural form with intellectual and

material progress, whereas feelings and connections to the earth are interpreted as

common and a thing of the past.

A theory of architecture is useful to humankind as a whole only if the theory resonates with

the deep feelings and direct experience of ordinary people. An alleged theory cannot look

down on the public and talk only to some small elite. It cannot treat the common person as

ignorant, and presume to claim there is no truth about anything in architecture. There is

indeed, and the truth exposes the absurdity of much contemporary architectural discourse

trying to hide under a relativist bluff. Perhaps this is why Alexander and his understanding of

architecture were marginalized by a fanatical relativism, prompting a much later comment

by Eisenman: “I think Chris unfortunately fell off the radar screen some time ago.”

If values in architecture have been arbitrary, or at least idiosyncratic for several decades, as

Alexander suggests, how could this situation have lasted for so long, and why does it still go

on? It seems that a culture of images serves capital-induced development, and especially

speculative building. And so we are faced not simply with silly or absurd form languages

assuming central prominence, but with a powerful and entrenched system that favored this

event. The system consists of the construction industry that is now entirely dependent on

industrial materials and production methods, the licensing process that has been adjusted to

permit only approved images, the banking sector that finances speculative construction, the

insurance industry that approves only a certain type of construction, etc. And this system is

fed by the architecture schools.

The system makes an enormous amount of money for the developer, but does not have to

generate either good architecture, or a healthy environment for the user. Remember that for

several decades now, the client is no longer the user: the client is the developer. Architects

therefore do what the developer wants, which is to sell the building as an image. This is

totally distinct from a building as a living and working environment for people. Those

architects who are the most effective salespersons for developers are consequently

rewarded above all others, with prizes, commissions, and influence.

Therefore, we find ourselves facing two very different conceptions of what architecture isand ought to be. On the one hand, the present-day system promotes a culture of images,

and its built-in inertia makes sure that very little else can be built. A student cannot even

learn the techniques to design anything outside the current system. On the other hand, the

approach and material of this book makes it possible to understand how architecture

actually works to adapt itself to human use and sensibilities. How the built environment

influences people, their health, and their activities. And that understanding helps us to

sustain life on earth.

Order the International edition of Unified Architectural Theory here, and the US

edition here.

Readings:

Christopher Alexander (2004) “Some Sober Reflections on the Nature of Architecture in

Our Time”, Katarxis Nº 3 . Reprinted as Chapter 34 of Nikos A. Salingaros: Unified 

Architectural Theory: Form, Language, Complexity , Sustasis Press, Portland, Oregon

and Vajra Books, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2013.

Christopher Alexander & Peter Eisenman (2004) “The 1982 Alexander-Eisenman

Debate”, Katarxis Nº 3 . Reprinted as Chapter 33 of Nikos A. Salingaros: Unified 

Architectural Theory: Form, Language, Complexity , Sustasis Press, Portland, Oregon

and Vajra Books, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2013.

Nikos A. Salingaros (2004) Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction , Umbau-Verlag,

Solingen, Germany; Fourth Edition 2014, Sustasis Press, Portland, Oregon and Vajra

Books, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Nikos A. Salingaros (2012) “Fashion and Design Ideology in Sacred Architecture: A